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Yahoo Unveils 'Awesome' New Look for Flickr

Yahoo has announced a brand new Flickr experience for the desktop and its Android users. Unveiled at a press event in New York City Monday, the new look aims to breathe new life into the once struggling brand.

It's move is so big, in fact, a terabyte of storage is coming to Flickr. This is enough room for each person take 537,731 photos and more than 2,000 in each country.

"You can take all the pictures ever taken and upload them to Flickr... and there would [still be room]," Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said.

Mayer emphasized event had nothing to do with the Tumblr acquisition announced Monday morning.

"Flickr was once awesome, and it languished... now we want it to be awesome again."

The new Flickr comes with a cover photo, a new look for albums — or called a user set — is streamlined in rows. It also dropped its pro subscription accounts.

Flickr joined the Yahoo family in 2005, but Mayer said at first it "didn't fare so well." Today, it reaches 89 million people who have contributed more than 8 billion photographs.

Mayer said she was petitioned by the Internet when she joined Yahoo last year to make Flickr better and made it one of her biggest efforts to do so.

"As soon as you come to Flickr, you know it's not about small pictures and more... and you can easily share not only with those you connect to on Flickr, but also on Instagram, Facebook and of course, to Tumblr," a spokesperson said.

Another spokesperson added: "You have high-resolution images everywhere, which is a huge differentiator... and we don't crop your pictures," he said, alluding to why Flickr might stand out against Instagram.

Yahoo sent members of the press invitations to the event on Friday, hinting at what might be in store: "Join us as we share something special." The event kicked off at 5:00 p.m. in New York City's Time Square, when attendees noticed billboards in the famed area.

The event is filled with photographs and Flickr signage, using keywords such as "biggr" and "wherevr."

Yahoo also announced it has found a home at 229 West 43rd Street — the former New York Times building — for its 500 New York employees, with an expansion room for 200 people. Tumblr employees will be staying in its offices downtown.

"Yahoo has for awhile now been looking for a home in New York ... we are proud to say we found it," Mayer said.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg took the stage, explaining how the city government was among the first to use Tumblr. "They have helped us build a better New York," he said. "We are proud Tumblr is a home-grown company ... we couldn't be more excited for them today."

Mayer said during a call with investors that it will bring ads to Tumblr blogs for users who want them to help monetize the platform. But overall, Yahoo and Tumblr will operate as separate companies and there won't even be a Yahoo logo on the blogging site.

"I didn't see this at the time," said Mayer, discussing how the acquisition came to be, at the event on Monday night. "The more we talked, the more we saw the companies could really compliment each other and it made sense to merge. It started as a partnership and the get-to-know-you discussions turned into an acquisition."

"It's the nature of user generated content," Mayer said. "On Tumblr, there is almost less than that than any of its peers. People who are looking for that content can find it, but those who aren't looking for that content won't stumble into it."

To address concern that the deal would result in big changes, Yahoo said in a press release that it will not "screw up" Tumblr.

"Tumblr has a good thing going and we want to keep it that way," Mayer said at the event.

The reactions on social media sites were mixed, but many of Tumblr users said they feel betrayed by the acquisition and believe the move could be the end for the blogging platform.

Some of the worry stems from Yahoo's previous acquisition of Flickr, which ultimately changed the photo-sharing site.

In fact, rival blogging platform WordPress said it noticed a high number of imported posts coming from Tumblr on Sunday night, which implies many might be looking to switch to a new platform amid the acquisition news. According to WordPress CEO Matt Mullenweg, his platform received 72,000 imports during one hour on Sunday, up significantly from 400 to 600 posts normally made in that time frame.

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